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Dan and Lu's Travels
Uncle Mike took us to Taliesin West this morning, which is the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright's Arzizona home/studio/campus. Dan and I took a 90 minute tour of the grounds and part of the house. It was fantastic, and really interesting.
Frank Lloyd Wright was a very innovative architect, wrorking at the turn of the century and up until his death at the age of 92 in the late 1950s. He taught students here and at his summer place in Wisconsin. They had to use only locally found materials, and designed and built their own living quarters, which had to be aesthetically in tune with the surroundings.
The house and grounds are fabulous, all designed to make you behave, look and sit in certain ways, the way Frank Lloyd Wright wanted you to. The location is on the outskirts of the city now, but when he chose the site Phoenix was invisble , on the other side of the distant mountain.
We toured th cabaret cinema and theatre and music pavillion, which were amazing. Lloyd Wright insisted that his students design and think about every aspect of life, so they were accomplished musicians, entertainers, set designers, cooks etc. The place still takes students, though I doubt it will be quite the same without the formidable character of Frank Lloyd Wright...
Uncle Mikel picked us up after the tour and we drove to pick up Aunty Beryl from the house before going to the Mayo Clinic, which is where Mikel volunteers in the library. Its a very swanky hospital which has fountains and artwork everyhwhere. I chatted to Paige, who is my gae and works in the development department, fundraising. It was interesting to find out how thye do things over here. We then went for lunch at a nearby hotel and had some pretty good fish and chips.
The pizza we had been anticipating for weeks had arrived by the time we were dropped off at Chris'. A Chicago style pizza (like a pie rather than pizza) whihc was flown in all the way from Chicago! Only in America......
It was worth the thousands of miles journey though, absolutely scrummy!!
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